trvia

chris sent me this thing. it's been ages since i've filled one of these out - not since middle school, actually. though ti would, post it in my blog, then invite everyone to do their own in comments section. no one will, but i'd like to believe you will humor me until time has proven otherwise. so pweeze just do it. it's also a good way to learn who reads me. tee!

Copy, not forward, this entire email and paste it into a new email that you can send. Change all of the answers so that apply to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch of people you know INCLUDING the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little known facts about your friends. Its fun and easy.

REMEMBER TO SEND IT BACK TO THE FRIEND WHO SENT IT TO YOU

1. WHAT COLOR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING? blue and pink plaid pj pants

2. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? rolling stones, you can't always get what you want just ended...now is the dandy warhols' get off

3. WHAT ARE THE LAST 4 DIGITS OF YOUR PHONE NUMBER? ****

4. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? dinner was salmon, white rice, and napa cabbage. dessert was a chocolate chip cookie and a banana

5. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? forest green

6. WEATHER RIGHT NOW? chilly. even indoors.

7. Last Person you talk to on the Phone? mummy

8. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE ACTOR? dunno, paz vega?

9. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? chilly.

10. FAVORITE DRINK? oregon tea iced chai latte

11. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? anything fruitier than it is boozy

12. FAVORITE SPORT? raquetball

13. HAIR COLOR? brown with fading red streaks

14. EYE COLOR? mostly brown, slightest hint of green

15. WEAR CONTACTS? god, yes

16. SIBLINGS AND THEIR AGES? no.

17. CAMPING OR HOTEL? hotel

18. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? fern gully (before that supersize me, before that taxi driver. i watched a lot of movies yesterday.)

19. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR? no particular one

20. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT? i suppose so

21. SUMMER OR WINTER? summer

22. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE NIGHT STANDS? relationships

23. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? chocolate

24. DO YOU WANT YOUR FRIENDS TO RESPOND? no

25. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? sadaf

26. LEAST LIKELY? everyone else

27. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? 2 bedroom apartment, 3 roommates, one absent, got my room to myself

28. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? norton anthology of english literature, vol. 2, the poems of ossian and related works by macpherson, the master of balantree (?), robert lewis stevenson...english minor *shrug*

29. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? no mouse pad, i use a tablet

30. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? scrabble

31. WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT? watched movies with my roomie

32. FAVORITE SMELLS? lilies, jasmine on a summer night tinged with the dusty smell of my window screen

33. CAN YOU TOUCH YOUR NOSE WITH YOUR TONGUE? not in any way you'd find impressive

34. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? genius. and when that fails, irreverence

35. BUTTERED, PLAIN OR SALTED POPCORN? buttered

36. FAVORITE FLOWER? white lily

37. FAVORITE VEHICLE? ferrari dino

38. HOW MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? 5

39. CAN YOU JUGGLE? god, no

40. WHAT WOULD YOU HATE TO BE TRAPPED IN A ROOM WITH? grinning sadist

41. 7-UP OR SPRITE? i'm not sure i know the difference

42. COFFEE? mmm

43. FAVORITE PERFUME? jasmine essential oil

44. FAVORITE BAND OF ALL TIME? *shrug* i'm bad at having favorites

45. DO YOU FLOSS? no

46. BITE YOUR NAILS? no

47. PET PEEVE? people who just don't get me

48. FAVORITE TV SHOWS? venture bros., alias, america's next top model (beautiful waif traincrash tv)

49. IF YOU COULD INTERVIEW ANYONE IN THE WORLD WHO WOULD IT BE? kurt vonnegut

50. FAVORITE VACATION SPOT? puerto la cruz, venezuela, though i'm now dreaming about going to costa rica some day

trees and a fat-os, both need your love

i'm afraid, afraid i have done a bad thing. i have signed up, along with katherine, for a hollywood video mvp movie rental thing. $10/month unlimited rentals, 3 at a time. i am never going to achieve anything ever again. you have just witnessed the death of my productivity, pfft! we signed up when we went to return taxi driver, which i finally watched. it was a bit odd, as i used to watch the old television series taxi. i had trouble reconciling the two casts and kept expecting andy kaufman to loll into the frame, bug-eyed, as generic foreign-man latka, babbling incoherently at bickle. "thenk you veddy much." movie was pretty good, cinematography not terribly impressive, though. enjoyed it, though.

so, upon returning the one video, we rented three more with our brand new discount plan. supersize me, fern gully, and rushmore - all katherine's choices, actually, i wasn't feeling too opinionated that night. we got back and fixed ramen for dinner. popped in supersize me. and were, of course, utterly horrified. a panicked feeling at the base of my ribcage prompted me to go outside and just begin running until i was bent over, wheezing and panting, dripping sweat into the street. obviously, i would never do such a thing and instead ate an apple as i watched a man's liver function cease due to excess fat. i don't want to be fat american. i don't even want my mother's thighs. i want to be lovely and svelte forever with my lithe muscles and fabulous wardrobe and wrinkle-free face. very glad i almost never eat out.

after that, we popped in fern gully and were awash in nostalgia and synthesizer music of the early 90's. i identified two voice actors correctly - very funny that christian slater voiced the snarky red-haired man-fairy. after the movie kat and i were beset by white-man consumer environmental guilt. bad planet-killing white woman, bad. i think the character of batty was much more enjoyable as large person who could appreciate "'ah, human!' 'that's a human?' 'yes! yes! kill it! restrain it! medicate it! *takes deep breath* 'puff up! puff up! they hate that!'" ah-haha. classic.

well, it's late and i still have coleridge to read. i'm stuck in the world of wikepedia in one of those compulsive "choose your story" loops of searching through linked articles obsessively. i had better go, if i get off the computer, perhaps i will get this done. so g'night! and hug a tree.

catalyst catharsis

had a very long and peculiar day. but really, the story begins last night, after my bio midterm. it was a bitch, i wasn't nearly adequately prepared. finished and came back to the apartment to attempt to read william wordsworth. his poetry was interesting, but his preface to lyrical ballads was excruciating - i kept being distracted by sex thoughts and realizing i had no concept of what i read, then cussing, but even without the sex thoughts i had no idea what he was trying to say. posted a short critique on the class discussion board and emerged from my room to join my friends in a social setting. blaize, amy, and ib had stopped by with a handle of vodka that was begging to be drunk and kat and roosh were entertaining. we had a jolly time, drinking, watching mortal kombat which i had actually been craving for a while, and playing scrabble. we had teams; kat and i won, of course. as much language pretension as we possess, it would have been disappointing had we not. the evening was fun and concluded around 4:30 in the morning. i promptly went to bed. my alarm rang at 7:45 the next morning.

i woke up today completely out of my mind. i lay there after my alarm rang and worried that i had forgotten what proteins i needed before i could get to class. for some reason, i was convinced that i needed two big proteins to be able to get out of bed. as if to somehow catalyze my waking up. of course, it was actually a sleep-deprived metaphor for the two blocks of time i needed to be able to arrive in class...you know, 40 min shower and dress, 20 min walk to class. that sort of thing. but my tired and overworked brain translated that into two massive proteins and i couldn't really figure out what was wrong with the thought. and so i hit the snooze button. in my confusion, i decided to snooze until i could remember what the proteins were and how i was supposed to actually obtain them while lying in bed. i was perplexed why, needing these things every day to get to class, i suddenly could not remember what they were. i hit the snooze button 3 times before i realized that i didn't fucking need proteins to get out of bed...so i sort of rolled to my feet and took a shower. i found this all quite unnerving. i mean, physics majors don't go crazy and suddenly worry that coulomb's second law will somehow prevent them from getting to class; english majors don't find themselves incapable of action until they can remember the definition of "zeugma." so what the fuck was that about? 4 hours of sleep, a bio midterm, and street booze is what. turns out liquor from last night was literally found on the street. no wonder i woke up completely flipped out. i hit blaize when i found out. the fucker.

i did manage to make it to my first class no later than i ever really am. even payed attention and took notes. went to my second class, lit discussion, quite spry. the prof sat in on it, observing, and being generally intellectually intimidating in his short, jolly sort of way. first thing we did was look at an example essay answer from the midterm, one that was pretty good, i assume. and so, being told that, the first thing to pop into my vain mind was, "i wonder if it's mine." of course, i realized how terribly egoistical that was and why should it be my essay, anyways? frankly, the essay i wrote for the midterm was pretty much crap, and they would have used a good one for the example. but still, when the transparency was put up, i compared it to my own essay. "hey, they used the same prompt. ah, that sentence looks like something i could have written. and they used the same examples i did. wait, shit, it is mine." so i sat there for the next ten minutes while my classmates ripped apart my anonymous composition feeling more shame for my underwhelming work than the urge to defend myself. hell, one of my "sentences" wasn't even that. i wrote a fragment! not even intentionally out of artistic style, i simply forgot to include a verb. but i did, sadly, have to have the last word, explaining "what was missing" was actually a particular textual example, not what the rest of them were saying at all. this was more out of the desire to show there was a point to the paper; that it wasn't entirely the inept work it seemed. the professor saw what i was getting at after i said my piece, at least. actually, it probably wasn't as bad as all of that, but i really rather hate to see my work displayed when it isn't anywhere near my best abilities and was written, as one classmate put it, "under duress" and extremely limiting time constraints. i got a 50/60 on the work, at least, but i'm still not particularly pleased with it. we moved on to other topics and such - y'know, class. sometime towards the end, i started shaking uncontrollably. unfortunately, i was trying to argue a point at the time. rather uncomfortable. went to my next class, bio, and was so cold and miserable that i just put my head down and tuned out. my head was being ripped apart and i expected that, at any minute, large chunks of it should be falling off. this was a pity as i usually dig my lectures. i left class early, deciding to return to my apartment and nap, forgoing free hot hot heat concert and lit office hours i needed to go to. as i walked back, however, i began to feel better. since i had already started on my way home, i decided not to turn around and just attend the concert, but then ran into blaize headed to campus for that very reason. he convinced me to go and i headed back with him.

stood around ackerman grooving to band. some good songs, mostly mediocre, and the sound system wasn't great, but i enjoyed myself. bought a $1 livestrong tsunami relief band from a girl walking around peddling them to warm and fuzzy co-eds, realized i could never wear such a thing, and gave it to blaize, instead, who is just trendy mainstream enough to pull it off. besides, the band wasn't nearly tight enough to produce that cuff-effect i enjoy in my wrist jewelry. mmm, binding. ran into yen and laughed while she gabbed with some indie rock boy promoting his band. then, feeling much restored, i headed further up into campus to go to the office hours and discuss my upcoming paper. actually, in over-educated new england tones, we talked about ice cream, la traffic, and the body worlds exhibits before the topic of the paper ever came up. i can re-write my disappointing midterm papers, fortunately (i cannot live with a c+ in english, it is too shameful) and it seems i will be exploring the inept heroic qualities of dr. jekyll in my research paper. hurrah! resolution. returned to the apartment and ate an english muffin before climbing into bed and curling into a little girl-ball. slept for 4 hours in blissful nap. talked to mommy on the phone, kat in person, baked insta-pizza, and watched some sex and the city. i am now going to watch taxi driver and then sleep some more and i will be a happy person. or i might pass out first. don't need specialized enzymes for that, thank god.

pit of intellect

finally sat down to study for tomorrow's midterm. with the focus of a thousand giant magnifying glasses, i learned. these were the results:


aim conversation with steffi:
me: tell me a happy story about little children that find love
steffi: hansel and gretel were not brother and sister
steffi: they were lovers
steffi: and the gingerbread house was their love shack
steffi: in which they indulged in temporal pleasures
steffi: MUAHAHA
me: temporal?
me: and hansel and gretel were always a little too close for my comfort, anyways. they were kids, but veery...bonded. their woodsman father left them in the forest because he couldn't stand watching them. creepy incestuous children.
me: and far too precocious for their own good
steffi: haha
steffi: temporal = earthly
me: oh
me: i always hear it in sci-fi context. "captain we are experiencing a temporal shift!" "don't interrupt me, mr. spock, can't you see that i am currently seducing an attractive, albeit green-tinted alien woman. though i was wondering why it is that we seem to perform the same face-smashing kiss over and over again, yet sustain no injuries nor move to second base."
steffi: hahahahahaha
steffi: that belongs in my profile
me: yay! positive reinforcement. i am witty.

aim conversation at jim:
all me: alright, i don't care whether you actually respond. it's either talk or fall back into crazy screaming study mode. and steffi has gone for food.
so i tried to go to my ls 3 ta's office hours today
turned out to be in "chs" building
had no idea what that was supposed to be at all
but on my way, i ran into some guy i recognized from the lab for that class
hurrah, i thought, someone who might know where it is
he gave be blank looks and said something about the room probably being changed and had no advice as to where "chs" was
i found him utterly useless, but did not tell him so
anyways, i had a bit of a hunch
i suspected, rather randomly, that "chs" stood for "career health sciences" and was somewhere in the grand mysterious complex of buildings that is behind ls
so i made my walk down to the ls building and beyond
one enters on the second floor there, and is suspected that the office was on the third, even though the numbering scheme was entirely different
ls has 4-digit room numbers. chs: 5
so, i went up a flight. found myself on the 4th floor of the med school, so i wandered around a little till i found a stairwell, went down one
found a map and a bank of elevators, but no good, somehow i had gotten myself into...well, i'm not sure what the building was named. it was named after a man, though. that wasn't right
so i wandered about some more, going from map to map, searching for the room
ended up somehow, not in the med school, but the dentistry chool.
every door, it seemed, lead to the hospital, and the grad students were beginning to stare
finally, i back-tracked
found the medical school
and lo, the building had the same format room numbering
i had intended to just return to ls and call off my search, but the numbers above the doors were heartening. i was even in the correct corridor
i proceeded onward, looking upward at the plaques on the doorframes
until, lo! the correct room number was before me
but the possibility still loomed that i was in the incorrect building
none of the nearby maps claimed to be "career health sciences" i was still in the med school
but then, peering through the cloudy glass window, i saw...my ta!!!
i entered, he was with a student, and sweatily proclaimed "a pox on you and your meeting room!"
my questions were answered and i was directed in the proper direction to the ls building
i have traversed the dark, seamy depths of the medical plaza and lived to tell the tale
just call me dr. livingston
*no responce*

aim conversations with sadaf:
me: how i love you, fructose, sucrose, glucose
sadaf: haha
me: apple juice from concentrate, you are my hero

me: distract me
sadaf: no, i can't! i'm freaking out.
me: why now?
sadaf: just b/c i have a whole lot of psychology reading to finish/study for quiz on friday, and i have a maht midterm on friday that i haven't started studying for.
sadaf: purely school this time
me: aaaack!!!
me: oh my freaking god, that's a lot of work!!
me: there's no human way any...human can do all of that!!
me: mother of odin, nooo!!!
sadaf: YOU SUCK!!!!
me: okay, now that i've freaked out, you don't have to
sadaf: I DON'T LIKE YOU ANYMORE
sadaf: that was cruel and mean and horrible
me: HEY, don't say shit like that to me until you know what my purpose is
me: i freaked out, thus eliminating the need for you to freak out. leaving you free to tackle your work without the taint of panic.
me: be grateful, bitch. it's psycological surrogacy
(she forgave me)

and finally, e-mail to chris:
i have a midterm tomorrow.  i began studying last night, just before my roommate and i had sex and the city marathon.  so, majority of learning was left for today.  i began studying in the late afternoon with ambivalence.  i became distracted partway through by my finances...just how much money will i not have to live on by the end of the school year.  the answer is...?  a couple thousand dollars; i'll be a couple thousand dollars short.  whoo.  well, that is, as long as my grant does not come through.  who knows what sort of joyous cash orgy i will be in if my grant comes through.  or at least paying rent.  i'll be able to pay rent.  so that entire situation, as you might imagine, caused me some stress, which i was then deftly able to channel into intense study focus for hours end-to-end.  moriaty intense study focus is more intense than your average study focus, as well. it is a soul-consuming pit of learning.  frequent food-breaks are necessary least neurons suddenly seize up of starvation.  it causes headaches.  i become literally quivering mass os insanity and information.  imagine pasty white jello imbued with human intelligence and vast knowledge of protein synthesis.  of course, one cannot remain sane for very long in this state and the craving for company and conversation eventually becomes overwhelming.  i get into the strangest conversations when i'm learning - desperation for distraction, overabundance of body energy.  but no one will talk to me now, so i e-mailin.'  also, have rolled up sticker of some kind up my nose, it's quite long and tickles.  falling.  gonna end now.  by dear. thanks for reading sanity-inducing words.  kisses, carla


i think that pretty much sums it up.

sagacity from a porn advert

more spam today. this one is from galvnometers i. gunner. it changed my life.

Greetings, white man! :)

Hol di good The real news is bad news.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge.
The chief beneficiary of life insurance policies for young, single people is the life insurance agent.
All work and no play makes one the wealthiest man in the cemetery.
An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.
The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one's opinion, but rather to know it.
I honestly believe it is better to know nothing than to know what ain't so.
It's what you do, unthinking, that makes the quick tear start The tear may be forgotten -- but the hurt stays in the heart.

Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.

All is but lip-wisdom which wants experience.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. Whatever accomplishment you boast of in the world, there is someone better than you.
Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

In business for yourself, not by yourself.
Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.

have i mentioned that the subject line was "FW: Britney Spears Naked on Paparazzi Pohots"? i'm going to save this e-mail and try to live my life by it every day i'm on the beautiful earth. also, maybe dl some of those naked brit photos, eh eh? no.

it's raining spam

my inbox has been inundated with spam of late. very bizarre and obscure things, though. oh, the topics are all perfectly average "hot milfs looking for love," "local cheating housewives," "horny local cheating weomn" - they even have a running theme! actually, they're pretty amusing, though i admit, obnoxious. the sender box, on the other hand has slowly become more and more outrageous. i'm afraid i haven't kept track of some of the earlier names that appeared, but no matter, the most recent one is the best. vandalizing f. amputee! it's genius, i tell you, genius! i know, these names are created by a random generator, but could a random generator not produce the works of shakespeare given enough time? i submit it would do so more easily than a monkey typing on through infinity as it would have an advantage in that it could only produce true words, rather than the undisciplined key-punching of an ape. of course, punctuation and formatting would also have to be factored in, but i'm sure allowances can be made in the interest of expediency.

speaking of inboxes, i still have not received matt's mysterious mailing and and growing, well, even more impatient. sadaf and suegol both dropped very vague hints over the weekend, indicating it might be a garment of some sort - perhaps - and that i would like it. i am terrible with suspense. even though matt declared toward the contrary, i suspect it will be pajamas. predictable, yes, but who does not love pajamas?

finally, on the topic of inundation... yesterday it poured down terribly hard. so much so that i was kept from my friends in the evening. i missed movie night, i'm afraid, as i would have assuredly drowned slogging to the dorms where everyone was staying. instead, i did a bit of light reading and watched zoolander, inspired in my choice by my distant friends. my ceiling, fortunately did not leak at all yesterday. today, on the other hand, was dry with only a light sprinkle falling. my ceiling dripped steadily but slowly all afternoon. i do not understand what exactly motivates this, then. i suspect it is governed by a whimsical sprite that lives in my ceiling and whose only ruling faculty is caprice. my bucket is till in place, along with the newspaper, so i am ready for whatever might fall. at least i have not yet had to start bailing out my carpet. the others are not so lucky, as the flood has advanced from their window all the way across the room to the door opposite. it is a very perilous place for dry socks at the moment, and we are all growingly terrified of killer mold. my own carpet is a bit damp next to the closet, at the current head of my bed. it is much less an inconvenience, however.

in other news, i have baked two different types of cookie, have watched the one-armed swordsman, eaten amy's chicken carcass soup, and have not begun studying for my midterm yet. that's the news of the rest of the weekend. good times.

whirl(puddle) weekend

the rains have returned to la once again, making this an uncharacteristically wet season for all i can tell. my green docs have broken and must be repaired, so i was left without tall shoes to repel the water until i remembered my doc martin 6-hole boots. those lovely babies are impermeable unless i am unwise enough to step in water that reaches to the laces. to match my garb, i went goth friday. dark cuffed jeans, studded belt, my black (h.r.) geiger-esque long-sleeved t, eyeliner. the effect of the ensemble were ruined a bit by the pink umbrella and big blue ucla sweatshirt, but i didn't really mind. arrived at my first class only faintly damp, socks blissfully bone-dry, but that was mostly due to having gotten a ride from katherine, who dropped me off not too far from my class (v. good considering torrent). i was, however, able to comfortably slog through puddles of any depth, to my growing glee. spent a couple hours after bio reading in the bookstore, then returned home. removed my shoes to discover blisters. nothing is ever perfect.

the old friends from back home have come to visit - suegol and shahin are here to visit and play for the entire weekend, i couldn't be happier. last night, suegol and mandy (who i don't know despite the fact that she went to my high school) arrived and i played welcoming party: giving them directions from the freeway to the dorms, helping them carry their bags up multiple flights of stairs, tagging along as they tried to find a parking space, escorting them to the rest of the group. the "rest of the group" were at the triangle frat, boozing it up with jim and his lot (quite literally: it seems sadaf and he became quite the confidants before i arrived). i really hadn't intended on going - when sadaf showed up at the party, i was alone in the apartment wearing a bathrobe, eating ice cream, and trimming my nails. the perfect glamorous friday night. i was avoiding party because, oh the drama: jim neglected to pick me up on time to drive me to a seminar on campus on neurulation in fetuses and i ended up not going. i should say, he arrived to get me late, after it began. i was at first disappointed, but i said equivocal things to him that made it seem half my fault that he was late (spare his feelings) - it was bullshit - and then after i hung up the phone i became pissed, really rageful. well, still a bit pissy later in the evening, i did not want to go to his party and make friendly. unfortunately, my whole gaggle of friends was already there, including the pushy sadaf and the visiting shahin, and suegol and mandy wanted to see them. so i reluctantly lead up my apes into hell. well, not really, that's just much ado about nothing. really, i lead them to the party, where i went in search of sadaf, who i found, along with yen, in jim's room. met the rest of the group downstairs exiting as we arrived, and also saw ib and blaize hanging about. quite the cast. so discovered sadaf and yen to a chorus of exuberant drunken squeals, making it impossible to reunite the crew and slip out undetected. besides, that would have been bad form. jim was sitting, distributor of alcohol, with the girlfriend in his lap. her presence made any sort of real conversation unnecessary, so i poured myself somewhere between a third and a half of a red party cup full of gin and left, friends in tow. after a short discussion in the hallway the visitors and sadaf's hallmates ended up at my place, where i played the kind hostess and served tea and water. i drank up my gin with apple juice and thought myself a shame to snoop dog's legacy. sadaf related much of her conversation with jim to me, she thinks perhaps i've been a bit harsh on him, and i must give that come credit, though i believe most of my behavior is defensible. also, to my consternation, told me that i'm prettier than the girlfriend, which, though is a nice my-friend sort of thing to say, is not something i really care about nor need to hear. she did make me a bit pensive, however, as i finished off my drink. eventually, everyone filed out, the roomates came back, i cleaned up, folded my piled clothing, and i went to bed.

in the morning, i was woken up at 8 by the drip drip dripping of water from the ceiling onto my bed. i groaned and considered just ignoring it, but eventually dropped out of bed and rolled it away from under the ceiling puddle. i went back to sleep, a little guilty for allowing the water to soak into my carpet, but too tired to care. an hour and a half later i was again woken, this time by sadaf's call, to let her into the garage so mandy could park. at the same time, i ran into my landlady, who gave me a bucket. i placed the bucket in the path of most of the droplets and went back to bed. until 3. and had the strangest dreams. in one, for example, i was lying asleep in bed, and people kept stealthily appearing in various parts of my room and shouting at intervals to wake me up, then disappearing once again. it wasn't particularly restful, i'm afraid. once up, i showered, nearly passed out from dehydration, ate a little something, and then piled into car - 4 to the backseat - and went with the gang to rodeo drive. we wandered around for a bit in the thankfully dry window of the afternoon, looked at a couple stores, got coffee, and soaked up the ambiance of the posh and the privileged. actually, rodeo drive was mostly tourists, though we did see one (assuredly local) range rover with the nauseating license plate "trendy." we returned, parked at yen's place, and walked into westwood for dinner in the now moderate rain. sadaf's umbrella, held between the two of us, kept dripping down the back of my neck in a painfully comic sort of discomfiture. had a lovely dinner and headed back during another short dry spell. for the rest of the evening, we "partied" with sadaf's floormates and liquor pinched from the triangle frat the night before. i did not get drunk, i did not hook up, i did not pass go; i did not want to. instead, i did the terribly uncool thing of sitting at yen's computer for most of the evening, struggling against "spider solitaire." eventually, once again, everyone broke off and went home, and i walked back up to my apartment alone. it was fortunately not raining, hurrah.

so i have another 2 days of 4-day weekend to go, and maybe one of them i'll get something achieved. it's unlikely and i think i'd much rather play host. maybe get a couple of movies watched and some sweets devoured. i've done nothing to deserve a nice break, but it seems i'm going to get one. so long, of course, as i'm not floated out of my apartment in my bed in the middle of the night by a wave of floodwater and carried away into the pacific. that would suck.

fragments

i have come down with a cold that tortures me only in the mornings - i am well by noon. was woken up at 9 to the sounds of furniture squeaking against the ceiling. dirty furniture squeaking, so i began my day with the thought, "oh just fucking come, already." fell back asleep and woke up again to much more cheerful thoughts of sore throats and little mexican children. went to my community service meeting grounds to get a ride to the library. teachin' children to read. rain caused traffic and we were in the car nearly till time to return home. went to see body worlds 2 with kat and the sister. innaresting once more. saw one with a soccer ball, another with a fencing epee and was reminded of matt and jim, in turn. smiled a secret smile and thought it good that i have hate for neither of them, otherwise i'd be picturing them flayed. returned and read blake, the marriage of heaven and hell. made me want to scream, but somehow enjoyed it immensely. suegol visits tomorrow and i must show her a good time. amy is here and kat must show her a good time, ferrying her about to colleges. on speaking terms once again with kim, who is happy and sane. much relieved if not emotionally detached. expecting a package from matt - tantalizing mystery gift. pretty much it. righty. been craving amazon orders, ackerman purchases, borders trip. it's silly, i have plenty here to read. ah well.

much love and a present

oh, i'm feeling fabulous! in a positively radiant mood, but i'll get to that later. last night was one of debauchery, oh yes. finished my horrible midterm essays on arthur and the knights of bore and decided to go out for a bit of fun. fortunately, fun had called me up an hour before and invited me to a party. one of sadaf's friends was having a no-particular-reason dinner/drunk and i decided to reward diligence by stopping by. headed out in the wrong direction from my apartment and ended up nearly in westwood before discovering my mistake and trekking all the way back, past where i live, to the party. was mildly chastised, handed a drink, and set loose in a dark room full of friends and strangers. i made conversation, drank, laughed almost continuously, and stopped sadaf from falling over 90% of the time. it was jolly. i ended up drinking: 2 (possibly 3) double shots of malibu, 1 gin'ntonic (far too much gin), and 1 canned alcoholic energy drink. take note, because that will all become important later. we rounded out the evening with activities a la eighth grade - spin the bottle, suck and blow - games i never ever played when they would have been age-appropriate. ended up drunkenly making out with: steve (coupla times, meh), sadaf, syrus (i don't know him), and tamely kissed some other girl whose name i can never remember. i was very amused. a while after the last of my drinks, after having been lounging around on the floor for a while, i inevitably with that amount of booze in my system, became ill. did the toilet-clutch for approximately an hour (my time-estimating skills were impaired, i really haven't the faintest idea). threw up a couple of times, holding back my own hair, i am amused to note. sadaf brought me water and patted me comfortingly for a bit and then encouraged me to get up and walk back to my own apartment. lo! i was able to stand and stagger out into the night with her firmly supporting me (hugs and much thanks to her). made it all the way back to my room, where i drunkenly imed jim without particular cause, undressed, and collapsed into bed. woke up at 9 in the morning, an absurdly early hour, feeling vaguely ill still, but much better than the night before. when i was unable to fall back asleep, i got up, chatted up chris, showered, had breakfast and felt wonderful. a couple of hours later, i was back to shivering and illness, so i napped for another three. woke up again and went out for a wander. borrowed dr. strangelove from jim, headed to sadaf's and had dinner, went to yen's and copied her notes for the lit midterm tomorrow. all in all, a lovely evening. back here, matt and i chatted a bit online. he very cutely asked whether i'd be coming home over spring break and could we hang out, maybe? got photos from him and suegol from various high school and summer exploits and that put me in the best mood. nostalgia: i love my friends and miss them so! and so i dedicate this valentines' to them, my sweetest darlings, old and new.

(this blog redeemable for 1 big ol' kiss: mon, feb 14, 2005.)

singing in the...insanity

i was describing to jim the brilliance of the mail-order pajama concept, but he wasn't nearly as enamored of the idea as i am. i tried to make him see. evidently, he's not very prone to flights of fancy. this is what came from those futile stabs at elucidation:


okay...
imagine.
you're at work
sitting in a cubicle
grey fuzzy walls, because that's what cubicles are made of,
bits of paper pinned to them, flickering computer screen, grey industrial desk, black stapler, picture of family...dog...whatever, small bendy plastic novelty figure for personality, coffee mug.
you're in your desk chair. also grey and fuzzy because, why destroy a perfectly good motif?
the chair swivvels, but doesn't lean back. cheap bastards.
you're sitting there swiveling back and forth absentmindedly, when, suddenly, someone comes by your 2 1/2-ft wide door opening. they hand you a manila folder, a couple legal-sized envelopes, and...a big brow package.
what could it be?
you open it, filled, for the first time in your day, with curiosity
and find, folded neatly into a perfect square
cerulean blue satin pajamas. the overhead fluorescent lighting catches playfully on the collar. inviting you. nap.
you turn, the desk, before so dull, so hard, so oppressive is suddenly inviting.
yes, you think. i could nap. but dare i?
yes, you have pajamas which you received in the mail. the rules of the universe no longer apply. you have received sleepware in the mail.
it is as if the man is telling you - go ahead.
the government, the man, the bureaucracy is giving you a giant thumbs-up. they delivered the damn things!
you slip on the pajamas, they fit! and so silky-smooth, you climb on top of your desk and nap.
the heavens part, a choir of cherubs begins to sing, your co-workers are oblivious, nymphs play about your desk chair and a gentle breeze, never before felt in a world of air-con and heavy, immobile high-rise windows, begins to blow.
a smile plays at the corners of your mouth, and you are happy.

he called me batshit crazy. i could never love a man who does not understand when he is caught in a creative cloudburst, and instead of singing, opens his umbrella of scorn. bastard. you get no pajamas.

(p.s. outside, it's actually raining. oh, yes.)

joy-urine and teddy bears

mum called me today to remind me that tomorrow's (well, today, now) my father's birthday. you have to love that woman - she instinctually knows that i forgot these things if not constantly reminded. i'm going to have to call him tomorrow and wish him a happy old age. i'm thinking of referring to him as "old man pop" at least once during the conversation, just to knead him a little. i'm a bad daughter. this entire stretch of february just annoys me. yes, all that valentines' bullshit. but what's worst is the commercials. this year, there's this horrid adam corolla hawking teddy bears ad that comes on late at night - it's long, obnoxious, and no one really needs a "love bandit" teddy bear from vermont to know that they're loved. but evidently, getting one of these plushy things will make any woman wet herself in glee. and then all of her friends will spontaneously squeal in jealousy and apoplectic rage. would that someone love me well enough to send me joy-urine inducing stuffed animals. oh, sigh. actually, it's not all bad; there's an ad for mail order pajamas - i love the very concept. how i would adore to be sitting in a cubicle, hard at work, and receive a package. whatever could it be? pajamas!? oh, you shouldn't have! i'm going to jump into these right here and take a nap! thank you, u.s. postal service!! zzzz.... also, this one doesn't piss me off because it's not seasonal, i saw one of these commercials back in december. i think i would lose bladder control from the sheer volume of joy in my system if i were to receive pajamas in the mail. that's just fuckin' smart.

but this is the affront every singleton must put up with on valentines'. one trying to remain cool, detached, non-bitter is suddenly assailed by the colors of pink and red. red-the color of rage, the color of spilt blood, of bull fights and vd. how can one remain calm when surrounded by images of weapon-wielding babies and internal organs? there was never any arbor day massacre. a friend asked me whether i was going to wear black on valentines' day out of protest. well, of course not. there's no way one can appear sane on the lovin'est day of the year while outwardly proclaiming their bitter rejection of all that is cuddly. goths do not give out little construction paper bats glued to lacy doilies proclaiming their "wuv." this valentine's day, i will be wearing blue, or green. the colors of air and water. i want to clash with every hideous store front, every themed display. i want to look like a puddle of serenity in a pink world. (pink is not an easy-going color. pink vibrates deep inside itself.) i will drift along at peace with my one-ness. and if i'm feeling generous, i'll send dad some mail-order pj's for his birthday.

general survey

so, greg e-mailed me today to say he was waiting for my next blog post. unwilling to disappoint my "readership" (i wish there were some way to make that word sound more singular than it already is) let me tell you a bit of what has been going on. i haven't been terribly inclined to post of late for want of something to say, but i'll give it a shot.

the lizard lab in which i have been laboring one a week for nothing has offered me a position actually doing proper labwork...eventually. they've applied for a grant to get me somewhere between $300 and $600 a week doing research. i'm not entirely sure where that money is supposed to go - my pockets or lab supplies, but but either way, i'm sure it will be appreciated. unfortunately, i haven't been so much in touch with them as i would like. i sent back an enthusiastic e-mail, but haven't heard back for a meeting and i'm beginning to doubt whether it was received at all.

i'm still laboring under the futile hope that some of my compositions, lost in the great computer heist of '04, may be recovered. one of my professors has a copy of the infamous kim essay, and i've e-mailed her to perhaps get ahold of it once again. unfortunately, she hasn't the faintest idea where it has been stored. (i'm impressed at the level of reverence she has for her students' work.) but she has moved office and everything is currently in storage. i'm going to wait until the building in which she kept shop is freed from the oppression of renovation and she is allowed to move back in before i accost her once again. chris has some of the others and i only need to wait for him to return home before i can get those back. he has a particularly brilliant piece i wrote about the fictional death of a tree, very inexplicably satiric.

my classes are going pretty well, i don't believe i did too horribly on my bio midterm and am bolstered by that new confidence to new heights of apathy. i've been keeping up in one of my english classes, but the other is just absurd. i am unwittingly becoming an expert on arthurian myth and i would like it to stop. one can only take so much, and the language in which most of these tales are written is unsupportable. my professor has the voice of kermit the frog, and the only thing that makes that class bearable is the united scorn of myself, yen, and several others with whom we have bonded. also, cross-word puzzles. one of that number is a tall, rather awkward engineer with whom yen has formed a particular bond. i find him rather difficult to talk to and i fear it might be from boundless shallowness. i rather hope that's not the reason. he keeps trying to convince yen, and by association, me, to go to a daria marathon at the triangle fraternity...well, tomorrow. now, though i am a large fan of daria - she was my unofficial hero for much of junior high - and feel a particular disaffected slacker affinity for jane, i really would rather pass on such an event, as would yen. i can only speculate on the level of awkward starting, being forced to make conversation in the frat house of jim. i can't say i've ever particularly been at ease there, but the rather back-door method of visiting his abode and seeing all his friends/frat brothers just seems a bit, well, horrid. plus, again, i'm not particularly easy around whats-his-name who invited us in the first place, so that won't be fun. and yen doesn't want to go.

i've been a bit of a shit and avoided social situations i anticipated would be uncomfortable that i really should have gone to. namely, blaize's birthday party. i do have a valid excuse that falls apart completely under scrutiny - i never learned his address, nor was i told when it would begin. of course, i could have called, but this is where my petulance comes in - so could they. i was in the apartment, actually enjoying myself i can gratefully say (or else this story would have just been pathetic), knowing i ought to go, not particularly wanting to and feeling mildly bitter that i wasn't being missed enough to be called. the next day, several people did im to ask why i wasn't there, but i really didn't feel much soothed - i was more irritated at their wondering how i possibly could not show up. it's an irrational fault. i felt bad for not going, especially since i've been craving a party for a while (mostly just getting drunk, actually), but that was ameliorated by the knowledge i would have to be in a room with few friends (mostly people i wasn't too fond of and some strangers) and kat wouldn't be present to act as a buffer.

kat's been sick for a week and a half now. ear infection then tonsillitis. i developed a little conceit that her heard was being eaten away from the inside out by bacteria. it had finally reached the surface first in her ear and throat, but soon her eyes would begin to decay as well. part of all of this was the mental image of her brain, resembling a shrunken mouldy orange (shriveled, white, lumpy) , suspended by an eroded stalk with cobweb-resembling filaments extending above. kindly, no? the water is back to normal here, so my germ-phobia fortunately only need extend in one direction now. i've been celebrating by wearing water colors again, today all in blue...with pigtails. i would consider myself terribly cute, except my skin has been rather poor of late - on my face and upper back. zits don't heal as they used to, either, leaving little dark shadows weeks after they've gone. almost makes me desperately want to exfoliate and i have to restrain myself from attacking my cheeks with a bath puff.

my laundry is still in a large pile on cynthia's bed, my wall has some lovely new decoration (periodic table of elements, and list of amino acids and their codons), we are out of milk, and i'm finding it difficult to beat the fortress in the forest of illusion (or whatever it's called) in super mario world. that's pretty much the news from here, i suppose with the exception of my deeper emotional state, wants or fears. but i'm sure no one wants to hear about all of that. hope that tides you over, greg. end.

troubled waters

so i didn't go to class. instead, i slept through everything, having an odd-

it sucks because it's my first day working in a supermarket. co-workers are disaffected and a little creepy but generally well-meaning. bitchy goth kids won't stop taking bites of the damn fruit and then putting it back. i try to reason with goth girl, be cool about it, but she's just a giant asshole. suddenly, the world is flooded. i'm stuck with my friends (leggy and interracial) and the bitchy goth kids (enemies) floating at sea. i'm nearly eaten by a giant fish (big circle of sharp teeth rising from straight below me in giant circle) but am saved by sister of best friend, who crashes her helicopter into its side. i pass out. i wake up in a green haze, eat something, then black (green) out again. when i wake up, i am standing back to a brick wall half underwater in the middle of the ocean (what is supporting brick wall?) holding the bitchy goth girl (makeup washed away) over my head, and my two best friends are dead. i suspect bitchy goth leader of treachery and shove my knee into her back. she screams. but i am prevented from taking my revenge and am forced by the rest to make a blood pact with the group that we'll work together. cut hands, touch together, swear we'll behave. i make a secret blood pact with the live sister (instead of touching bloody hands to one another we hold each other by the neck) to avenge the girl's death. also, that we might become lovers (lesbionic potential). (she looks like seth's punky girlfriend on the oc. ouch. that's lady-hot.) wound was small and is already starting to close. i'm staring at the blood spot i left over her left collarbone when i wake. (she left one low on my neck just above above my left shoulder.)

-dream. before that dream i was half-awake and having a man-fantasy, so i haven't the faintest what all of that says about my sexuality. i'm not really concerned. in other news:

today i studied everything, thank god, and i just need to review a bit tomorrow. i proofed my essay and i have the most oppressive fear that i've entirely forgotten how to incorporate quotations. kat has an ear infection or a cold and i'm mildly germ-phobic. the water main on campus broke and i'm being warned that the tapwater here may be contaminated. as a result, i'm going to go brush my teeth with bottled water, wake up before 4 tomorrow, shower despite possible ickiness, turn in my essay, finish cramming, buy a test-taking pen, take a test. and then, i hope to get drunk. balls-out drunk. it's probably not going to happen and i'll spend my evening reading tennyson's the idylls of the king or something, but it's good to have a dream. oh, and freenapkinz, from october's peculiar picnic-rpg is back. sent text messages to my phone, which has me feeling a bit stalked. hopefully that will develop into something that doesn't involve me lying dead in a puddle of westwood hobo pee. we'll see. but the anticipation is absolutely arresting.

quiet decline

yesterday was a good day. shining sun - tank-topped and frizzy i went to all of my classes, talked to strangers, and generally went about in a good mood. back at the apartment, i borrowed a vacuum and did my mother proud, cleaning like i had something to prove. but after the floors were spic and span, things began going wrong. i could not create a coherent argument for the life of me, and three outlines and two false starts later, my paper was no nearer completion. i paused to make soup. peeling the potatoes, i let my mind wander away from the paper, but frazzled as i was, i peeled twice the appropriate amount. i looked down into the pot of submerged tuber and realized that i would either have to make some sort of cream soup or mash to dispose of them all. i opted for the third, lazy option of just removing half the cubed potato to store in a tupperware in the fridge. i haven't the faintest idea what i'm going to cook with all of that. eventually, i got the carrots and potato boiling and went back to my paper. i created a fourth outline to clarify my ideas and then set to chop-shopping an intro from my original pieces. i went back and forth to add more ingredients to the soup and to write more brilliant lines of bullshit until my food was done. then i sat down to eat. after my too-brief repose, i returned to writing, and somehow alliterated every couple of words until it threatened to turn into an incredibly dense children's novel about "social shields to fool friends" as portrayed by seventeenth-century libertine, wycherly. i then began my laundry. every quarter hour i would have to the parking garage (laundry room location) and move everything to the dryer, begin another load, switch dryers, or take out my clothing. with several several staggered loads it took much longer that it ought. i finished my essay, but gave up on folding and putting away in favor of sleep. there's a large pile of my garments on cynthia's bed that i'm going to have to deal with someday. got much less sleep than i would like and today went to a bio review session. came back, and despite all my best intentions to study and learn, etc, i watched a few hours of tv. i finally sat down to work and did a rather surprisingly good job of not distracting myself until...well, now. i'm not as far along as i'd like to be, but if i don't get my sleep, tomorrow i'll be an even bigger catatonic zombie-girl and i'll probably begin snarling at passers-by. wednesday is another big learning day, though i have secret plans to study my bio notes in english. then back to the grind here with reviewing the lecture slides. fortunately, i find molecular biology very elegant, otherwise i would be weeping. goodnight!